Sexual Assault Charges Dropped at Annapolis

WASHINGTON — Charges in a sexual assault case have been dropped against a Naval Academy midshipman after his statements about the encounter were determined to be inadmissible because he had not been read his rights before questioning and, as a result, there were “no reasonable grounds” to prove a crime was committed, the Navy announced Friday.

The decision to drop charges against the midshipman, Eric Graham, means that only one of three former football players accused of sexually assaulting a female midshipman at an off-campus party in 2012 will face court-martial. Charges were never brought against the third midshipman. The remaining defendant, Joshua Tate, is charged with aggravated sexual assault and making false statements. Mr. Graham had been facing charges of abusive sexual contact and making false statements.

The decision in the Graham case was criticized by one of the victim’s lawyers, Susan L. Burke. “We are outraged,” she said. “The prosecutors confronted a situation that confronts many criminal prosecutors — your evidence gets botched.” She said there was “substantial other evidence” that could have been used to bring Mr. Graham to trial.

The decision in the Graham case came as the Pentagon on Friday released its annual report on sexual assault and sexual harassment at the three service academies. The study found that peer pressure and an unofficial code of silence remained barriers to reporting sexual harassment and assault among students. It noted that actions by some of the academies’ sports teams had created a hostile climate where women were not respected. But the Pentagon said that reports of sexual assault decreased to 70 in the 2012-13 academic year from 80 the year before.

The Air Force Academy had the largest number of reports, with 45. Pentagon officials attributed the increase in reporting to an energetic outreach program that encouraged victims to come forward. There were 15 reported cases at the Naval Academy and 10 at West Point. But the numbers are somewhat misleading: The Defense Department counts cases of sexual assault and harassment in the year in which the reports are made, not the year the episodes occurred. Officials said that 53 of the 70 cases occurred after the victims came to the military; the others occurred when they were still in civilian life, but not reported until the academic year under review.

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Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Snow, second from left, director of the Pentagon's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, joins other senior leaders at the Pentagon on sexual assaults in the military.CreditWin McNamee/Getty Images

Most of the 53 cases that occurred at the academies were between students, and many involved alcohol, the study found. Five involved civilians who reported being sexually assaulted by an academy student. These statistics do not cover the larger category of sexual harassment, but only sexual assault, which includes inappropriate touching as well as penetration.

Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Snow of the Army, director of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, said the new statistics did not represent the full problem of sexual assault. “We know it’s an underreported crime,” he said. “Sexual assault is a crime and has no place at the academies, just as it has no place in our own forces.”

According to the report, “An unfortunate aspect of this problem is that the unacceptable behavior of a very few was ignored, tolerated or condoned by cadets and midshipmen who were aware of the misconduct.” It notes that “the same social forces that give cadets and midshipmen a collective sense of identity and purpose at a military academy also work to maintain the silence or complicity of peers when a few misbehave.”

The study found that members of the men’s rugby team at West Point “circulated a number of emails that illustrated a culture of disrespect toward women.” The study includes a reference to the assault cases at the Naval Academy, noting that midshipmen violated academy rules to rent a house in Annapolis, Md., where “an undisclosed number of parties where alcohol was reportedly served to minors” were held.

“The house was also the scene of an alleged sexual assault involving midshipmen who were members of the U.S.N.A. football team,” the study said, referring to the Tate case. It also said that at the Air Force Academy, “A years-old slide presentation that disparages academy women continued to be circulated by members of at least two sports teams.” General Snow said the service academies must work harder to “foster a climate of dignity and respect.”

Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, released a statement on Friday after the report was released saying that “the prevalence of sexual assault in the military and the crisis of underreporting continues to extend to the academies, and that is tragic and heartbreaking.”

Representative Niki Tsongas, Democrat of Massachusetts, said that “reports such as this galvanize the fact that we have a long way to go toward combating and preventing sexual assault in the military.”

Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Sex Assault Charges Dropped at Annapolis. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe